221B Baker Street
by 3milicious
Summary: When 14-year-old Beatrice Thornton's twin brother is abducted, she gets sent a letter. A letter telling her to go to 221B Baker Street if she ever wanted to see her brother again.


"Mr. Holmes?" The girl's voice was trembly, unsure of itself. Her knock was hesitant, and she shifted her weight on her feet as she stood outside of 221B Baker Street. Everything about her screamed hesitation.

"Yes?" The man who opened the door was tall, he was holding a violin with one hand, his hair was messed up, and he looked entirely irritated at the intrusion.

"I'm sorry, did I interrupt your violin playing?" The girl asked, motioning to the instrument he held in his hand.

"Yes." He repeated, this time decisively. "What do you want?" He prompted, when the girl hesitated at his rudeness.

"I would like your help in solving a crime. I can pay you." The girl offered, she stood up straighter.

The man, Sherlock, raised an eyebrow as he assessed the girl.

"You can't be more than what, fourteen? You come from a middle-class family at best, no extravagance was spent on your clothes or in the flip-phone you have in your jeans pocket, and you offer to pay a consulting detective?"

The girl blushed, she opened her mouth to stammer a reply, but Sherlock beat her to it.

"You're lucky I only accept payment of interesting crimes." He said, and the girl smiled, slowly. She wasn't entirely sure if he was joking.

"Who is it, Sherlock?" A shorter, tan-haired man came to the door. He looked far more amiable and wasn't holding a violin, so the girl took both of this as good signs.

"This girl. She wants us to solve a case." Sherlock replied.

"Do you have a name, other than this girl?" The shorter, kinder man asked the girl.

"Beatrice." She said, "Beatrice Thornton."

Sherlock's eyes lit up.

"Oh! Thornton! I know who you are. Your brother, Darren, was kidnapped, wasn't he? Two weeks ago? Quite interesting case!"

"I'm glad you think so." The girl said, trying not to get offended by his straightforward choices of words. "Yes. He was kidnapped." She added.

"Well, come on in! You'll need to tell me more. And inform me as to how you got from Surrey to London, all by yourself, a girl as young as you." Sherlock said, and he moved to the right so that the girl could enter.

"Thank you." Beatrice said, she was slightly off-put by this odd man's behavior.

"Now, why are you here, Miss Thornton?" The shorter man asked, whom had still not yet given Beatrice his name, when they were all seated and a few minutes had passed without Sherlock doing anything but staring at Beatrice intently, fingers knotted together.

"We already established that, Watson. Keep up, please. Her brother was kidnapped. But what led you here, Beatrice? That is what I would like to know." Sherlock asked, and Beatrice nodded.

"Alright. Well, as you know, my brother was kidnapped two and a half weeks ago. Yesterday, I got a letter in the mail… I have it in my back pocket, let me get it." Beatrice paused to fish out a piece of paper from her back pocket.

"Here you go." She said, handing it to Sherlock. As he read it, Watson read it over his shoulder, so they both read the contents.

Dear Beatrice,

If you ever hope to see Wren again, you must go to Sherlock Holmes, whom lives at 221B Baker Street.

"Wren?" Sherlock asked, when he finished the letter, moving his inquisitive ice blue eyes from the letter to Beatrice.

"That's why I regarded this letter as real. Wren is what I used to call Darren when I was a baby. We were twins, and Wren was my second word. It even beat out my father. Darren was always too hard for me to say as a toddler, for some reason, so I ended up calling him Wren until I went into kindergarten. It's such an odd detail to include in a letter, it gave me an instinctive feeling this person wasn't trying to scam me. I'd heard the name before, Sherlock Holmes, I knew, so I did a Google search of you. You're a detective, a private detective, ri-."

Sherlock winced at her words, like she was physically harming him.

"Not private. Consulting detective. The police consult me." Sherlock corrected her, and she nodded.

"Well, I found out you were a consulting detective, and a right good one at that." She said, and Watson nodded, but Sherlock was too busy studying the note.

"Found anything out, Sherlock?" He asked, and Sherlock nodded.

"Why don't you give it a go, Watson?" He asked, and Watson frowned, but he consented, picking up the letter.

"The writer is probably male, judging from the handwriting, and it was written hurriedly, two letters are crossed out." Watson noted, and Sherlock nodded.

"Is that all?" Sherlock asked, sounding surprised, and Watson nodded.

"Well, you were only right about one out of two of those things. The writer is most definitely male, but the note wasn't written in a hurry. It's careful penmanship, not slanted or ran together. The crossed out letters are the only indication of this, and I think those are clues." Sherlock said.

"Clues? Who leaves clues to a crime they committed?" Beatrice asked, blurting out her mind, and Sherlock answered without even looking up from the letter.

"People who want to play a game." He replied, as he turned it over, and held it up to a light.

"He definitely wants to play a game." Sherlock said, after a second.

"He?" Beatrice and Watson asked at the same time.

"Of course. He inserted his initials in the form of two crossed out letters. He pressed hard for the initials, and only lightly crossed them out, so they could still be visible and fairly easy to make out when you hold them up to the light. He did this on purpose, of course." Sherlock surmised, tilting the paper a little bit.

"Who is he?" Beatrice asked, slightly exasperated.

"Jim Moriarty, my arch-nemesis. Now, Beatrice, you never did tell me how you got into London by yourself."


End file.
